Our Saviour

With our hands in our hair one of the Hotel Tamana staff comes up and Nikola tells us he has a friend with a "modern garage" who takes care of the cars of the French Embassy. Desperate by now we ask Bassirou to come and have a look and he tells us within seconds he needs to take it to the garage as there is nothing here he can do. As it is Sunday we agree to see him on Monday morning.

At 10am, we tow the car to his garage and they start checking everything that could be wrong with a petrol engine. Unlike previous mechanics we don't have to tell him once where the problem could possibly be, and from the specific questions he asks our confidence grows. Luckily we have met up again with Isabelle, who is fluent in French and is kind enough to translate, which makes things so much easier! Bassirou is very kind and ever so generous and provides us with cold drinks while we wait. Via Isabelle Jamie talks to Bassirou about sports, and how important it is to participate in sports regularly. As it is Ramadan Bassirou cant eat from sunrise to sunset yet he still takes us out for lunch in a lovely restaurant. Luckily at sunset we can share some delicious tea and cakes with him! On Tuesday evening we meet him in Le Campagnard and he tells us that our piston has broken (a diagnose Jamie has been suspecting for a while!), which basically means the car loses all power and can be temporarily fixed but any bump in the road could destroy the fix and bring us back to square one! Bassirou is very honest and clear, he can fix it telmporarily but he cant guarantee we will make it down to Accra. He says the best thing is to look for spare parts and as that will be very hard with there hardly being any Land Rover petrol engines about, we should also look into buying a whole new engine, which might come out even cheaper in the end. Jamie and I are slightly shocked, but grateful for Bassirous honesty and we decide to look for a new engine and at the same time for a buyer for our car. It is sad, but we might be able to sell it for a good price and we simply don't have the time to wait for a new engine (which we find out has to be shipped from France for 1000euros!!). We start making phone calls but soon find out that once people know we are slightly pressed for time (having to be in Accra in 14 days), offers drop drastically, and so much that Bassirou advises against selling it! He tells us that our potential buyer will sell the car for 3X its worth and for 5X more than he bought it from us, to his embassy! After long thinking, and having full trust in Bassirou, we decide to leave the car in the garage, make our way to Ghana and in the next weeks start finding a buyer. Bassirou says he will do his best to find someone too. This thus mean we might have to come back to Bamako!! If so, we can go and have lunch with Bassirou as he has become a good friend and as Ramadan will be finished by then!